Seahawks have overhauled roster in offseason

Counting up six months of changes in Seattle takes some time.

That's to be expected, though, considering the Seahawks were one of the league leaders in offseason turnover.

They completed five trades, drafted eight rookies and signed so many players on the open market that it's OK if you mistook the roster for a revolving door the way players were shuttled in and sometimes right back out.

The adjustments continued Thursday, one day after Seattle concluded its offseason workouts with a final practice at the team's headquarters. Seattle signed Jonathan Lewis, a defensive lineman who entered the league in 2006. Seattle released Barrett Moen to make room on the roster.

Lewis is the 60th different player Seattle acquired since Pete Carroll became the head coach in January. More than a dozen of those guys have already been shown the door, cut before having so much as a practice with full pads. LenDale White was considered a potential starter when Seattle acquired the running back from Tennessee on the third day of the draft. He was gone five weeks later. Reggie Williams, the former first-round pick out of Washington, stuck around for all of two months.

Does the degree of change surprise Carroll?

"No," he said. "We talked back in the beginning that we were going to compete to find as many ways we could to improve and to challenge the depth of the roster. If you'd have asked me, I would have thought we might have half turnover."

Actually, it's a little bit more than that. Of the more than 80 players listed on the team's roster, 44 were acquired after Carroll took over.

That will happen when a franchise brings in a new coach like Carroll to change the culture, and a new general manager in John Schneider to upgrade the talent. The pair proceeded to take a jackhammer to a good portion of the roster.

That overhaul isn't quite as severe toward the top of the pecking order. Of the 22 starters in Seattle's regular-season finale against Tennessee last season, 17 of them remain on the Seahawks roster.

It's not just the depth that has changed, but the message. Roles are no longer as clear-cut and defined.

There's an open competition at running back, and a free-for-all for someone to lay claim to the role as the No. 1 wide receiver. While Matt Hasselbeck remains the starting quarterback, the fact that Seattle's first significant move was to bring in Charlie Whitehurst, whom Seattle sees as a potential starter down the road, sent a clear message: The previous pecking order wasn't being thrown out the window, but it wasn't written in stone, either. Players would earn spots.

So after six months of change, have the Seahawks improved the talent level on the roster?

"I feel like we have," Carroll said.

No one will really know until the real games begin in September, but make no mistake, Seattle is overhauled, a process that isn't necessarily finished.

"We're going to keep bringing guys in and keep making moves," Carroll said, "keep pushing the envelope as much as we can to keep getting faster and keep getting guys with special qualities is what we're looking for all the time."

That's easy to see. Just count up all the changes this team has made.

Danny O'Neil: 206-464-2364 or doneil@seattletimes.com